Jacobus Bontius ( Jacob de Bondt) (1592, in Leiden – 30 November 1631, in Batavia, Dutch East Indies) was a Dutch physician and a pioneer of tropical medicine. He is known for the four-volume work De medicina Indorum. His 1631 work "Historiae naturalis et medicae Indiae orientalis" introduced the word "Orangutan" into Western languages.[Dellios, Paulette. 2008 "A lexical odyssey from the Malay World." Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 23:1]
Life
Bontius was born in
Leiden, the youngest child of eight of the physician Gerard de Bondt /
Gerardus Bontius (1536–1599), professor at Leiden University. Amongst his brothers were Reinier de Bondt /
Regnerus Bontius (1576–1623), court physician to Maurice of Nassau, and Willem de Bondt / Wilhelmus Bontius, law professor at Leiden University.
[G. W. Bruyn and Charles M. Poser, The History of Tropical Neurology: Nutritional Disorders (2003), pp. 1-3; Google Books]
Jacobus graduated M.D. from Leiden in 1614. He sailed to the East Indies with Jan Pieterszoon Coen, for the Dutch East India Company.[[2] The National Herbarium]
De medicina Indorum (1642)
Bontius' medical observations were published after his death. They include what is recognized as the first medical description of
beriberi.
[David W. McCandless, Thiamine Deficiency and Associated Clinical Disorders (2009), p. 31; Google Books] He reported on the
dysentery epidemic in
Java in 1628.
[Abhay Kumar Singh, Modern World System and Indian Proto-Industrialization: Bengal 1650-1800 (2006), p. 682; Google Books] The second edition of 1658, put together by
Willem Piso, was expanded and included material by Piso on the Americas.
[Donald F. Lach and Edwin J. Van Kley, Asia in the Making of Europe, Volume III: A Century of Advance. Book 1 (1998), p. 457; Google Books]
Notes
